psyche and eros – Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry

During my POEM LIFE show, there will be a segment (a crime) where I offer up a series of poems that are reinterpretations of the Psyche and Eros myth. One of the poems in the cycle is called “The Return,” and in the show, it is the last one. I have two versions of this poem, one I wrote as a regular poem, the other with the thought in mind that it could be a song.

Both the poem and the song are featured in the show; however, I’m not a songwriter, singer or musician, so I managed to find someone who put it to music for me and sang it. That would be Andy Bartosovsky, a friend of a friend from Facebook who lives in Alexandria, Virginia. (Social media is truly good for many things.)

You can listen to the song at his website, and please send a little payment his way.

Thanks, Andy! The poem is perfect for Poem Life, and I look forward to playing it for an audience.

–Shaun Perkins

My Poem Life show will include a section that tells the story of Psyche and Eros with poetry and audience interaction and stuff. Psyche is sacrificed to the beast because . . . well, that’s just what people used to do (still do). She was one of the beautiful young girls of the village so obviously was selected. She was decorated and put into a cart and taken to the top of the mountain to await the beast.

How it Began

It could happen any day
To anyone—finding one’s self
At the top of a mountain
Awaiting the thing you dream of
Yet can’t imagine.

I had not been taught to imagine
So I went trusting my father,
Trusting the townsfolk parading
Around me. In celebration,
We climbed the mountain.

I want to say this to you now,
Now that I have come through:
As I was carried up, I noticed
A mole near my ankle bone,
And a black hair spiraled from it.

Please come to the show! More details here. Oh, and that Jane Russell photo from The Outlaw . . . yea, there’s a poem about her and it in the show, too.

–Shaun Perkins

Tag: psyche and eros

$1.00 a Song

How it Began